House Republicans passed a bill on Wednesday to include a question about citizenship in the census, which is a topic that the Supreme Court stopped in 2019.
The Equal Representation Act, a bill passed by the House GOP, was approved by a vote of 206-202 along party lines.
The bill would instruct the Census Bureau to include a question on citizenship in the survey conducted every ten years and require that only citizens be considered when determining the number of congressional seats each state gets.
By targeting this allocation, Republicans could reduce the influence of high-population, left-leaning states like California.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) commented, “It's common sense that only American citizens should be counted for electoral representation, and the Equal Representation Act ensures that. We should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and have sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation.”
However, introducing this question raises concerns that it could reduce the response rate to the Census, which is required by the Constitution to count all free persons.
Both the government and nonprofits have spent years educating noncitizens to participate in the Census, emphasizing that taking part will not lead to immigration enforcement.
Democrats criticized the bill as an attack on immigrant communities.
Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) said, “Having a census that only includes citizens, as this bill proposes, is reckless, cynical, and frankly, illegal. It's not the Census Bureau’s job to track immigration status.”
In a statement of administration policy This week, the Biden administration expressed strong opposition to the bill, stating that it would prevent the Census Bureau from fulfilling its constitutional duty to count the number of people in the United States during the decennial census.
By advancing this concept, the House aims to revive an initiative initially introduced by the Trump administration and later blocked by the Supreme Court.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross attempted to add the citizenship question to the 2020 Census at the last minute, going against the advice of Census Bureau experts and supporting a key priority of then-President Trump.
However, the Trump administration failed to provide a valid reason for the move amid legal challenges, ultimately losing in the high court as Chief Justice John Roberts found that the government's explanation for adding the question was fabricated.
